Eric Ambler - State of Siege

Then, Rosalie arrived and things were suddenly different.

She was wearing a light cotton dress that should have made her look more European, but for some reason had the reverse effect. As soon as she saw me, she smiled and came over, nodding to someone she knew on the way. There was nothing self-conscious about her greeting, no arch pretence that she had not really expected to find me there. She was glad to see me and I was glad to see her, and, as I was drinking gin, she would drink that, too.

It was a good evening. I don’t remember all the things we talked about; Mina and Jebb for a while, I know, and the police department, food, clothes, Singapore, air travel, and the black markets; but after we had dined, and then danced a bit, we talked about ourselves. I learned that she had a sister who worked for a shipping company, that her father, who had been in the Dutch army, had died in a Jap P.O.W. camp, and that her mother preferred to live now with relatives who owned land near Kota Baru. She learned that, after a spell in the Western Desert, I had spent most of the war building airfields, that my wife had gone off with a Polish army officer while I had been away, and that my firm in London had written asking me if I would like to do a job in Brazil.

Lim Mor Sai showed up later in the evening and went round the tables making himself agreeable to the customers. When he stopped at our table I gave him Jebb’s message about the cigars. Just for a moment it seemed to disconcert him.

“Cigars? Ah yes. That is most kind.” He paused. “May I ask where you are staying, Mr. Fraser?”

“Jebb’s lent me his apartment. Why?”

He hesitated, then shrugged apologetically. “Here one always asks. The hotels are so full. You are fortunate.” He bowed slightly and moved on; but I had a feeling that he had left something unsaid. So had Rosalie. I saw her look after him in a puzzled sort of way; then our eyes met, she smiled as if I had caught her out in an indiscretion, and we got up to dance again.

We left the place soon after eleven. Mahmud was waiting outside. There is just room for two reasonably slim persons in a betjak , and he waved away a colleague who tried to muscle in. Rosalie gave him an address, and he set off enthusiastically, the chain making cracking sounds as he threw his weight on to the pedals.

The street to which he took us was on the outskirts of the Chinese quarter. The pavements were arcaded, and between the shops there were broad, steep staircases leading to the upper floors. About halfway down the street, Rosalie told him to stop. Then she got out and hurried up one of the staircases. I lit a cigarette and waited. A little way along the street, an old man was sitting on the edge of the open drain with his legs dangling into it, solemnly combing a long grey beard. On the opposite pavement there was a Sikh watchman asleep on a charpoy placed across the doorway of a furniture shop. Only two or three windows in the street showed any light. It was so quiet that I could hear Mahmud breathing.

Rosalie was gone about ten minutes. When she returned, she had a small dressing case with her. I told Mahmud to drive us to the Air House.

There, the policemen on duty at the door glanced casually at my pass and nodded. They paid no attention to Rosalie. The generator in the basement was silent; presumably, the radio station had shut down for the night. The lift was working again and lights had been left on in the fifth-floor corridor. Beyond the swing doors at the end of it, however, there was pitch darkness and I had to strike matches to light the way to the apartment. I remembered how unprepossessing it had seemed to me the previous day.

“It’s not all as bad as this,” I said.

“I know, Mina told me. Besides, I helped her choose the furniture.”

When I had left the apartment, I had locked all the windows on to the terrace. She sat down while I opened up the living room, but when I came back from doing the bedroom, I found that she had gone into the kitchen and was looking at the refrigerator.

“Thirsty?” I asked.

“A little.” She patted the refrigerator. “Does it work?”

“Oh yes.”

I got a tray of ice out and showed her. She smiled and wandered off into the living room. When I went in there with the ice and glasses, however, she was out on the terrace.

I watched her. For a moment or two she stood quite still, looking round at everything as if she were making an inventory, then she walked away slowly past the attap screen to inspect the bathhouse. She was out of sight now, but I could hear her shoes clicking on the concrete. The sound receded and then got louder again. I heard her go into the bedroom. The sound of her footsteps ceased, and I knew that she was standing there taking in everything and getting used to it. The drinks were made, but I left them where they were and stretched out on one of the long chairs. I did not want to interrupt her.

A minute went by, and then I heard her move.

“Steven?” It was the first time she had used my name.

“In here.”

She came through from the bedroom and smiled when she saw me on the chair.

“I have been looking at everything,” she said.

“Yes, I know.”

I handed her a drink. She drank about half of it, but thoughtfully, as if she were up against a serious problem. I asked her what it was.

“It is very warm,” she explained carefully. “I was thinking that I would take a bath.”

“Is that all? Well, I’m going to take one, too. You go first.”

She came back from the bathhouse wearing a sarong. The towel was draped modestly over her breasts and her black hair hung loose on her shoulders. I left her standing by the terrace balustrade, looking down into the square below.

The water was deliciously cool. I dried myself slowly so as not to get warm again, tied a towel round my waist and walked back along the terrace.

She was no longer there, and there was only a single light on in the living room. It shone indirectly through the open door into the bedroom. It was there that I found her.

It was still dark when I awoke and the terrace outside was almost white in the moonlight. I knew that it was a sound that had wakened me, but I did not know what sound. I looked across at Rosalie asleep on the other bed; but she was quite still. There was a small table between the two beds and I could see the dial of my watch glowing there. It was three forty-five.

Just then I heard the sound again. It came from away along the terrace. A man said something sharply and there was a noise like a packing case being moved on concrete.

I swung my legs to the floor and stood up. My bath towel was lying between the beds and I wrapped it around my waist. If I were going to have to tackle an intruder, I preferred not to do so stark naked.

I bent over Rosalie and kissed her. She stirred in her sleep. I kissed her again and she opened her eyes. I kept my head close to hers.

“Wake up, but speak softly.”

“What is it?” She was still half asleep.

“Listen. There’s somebody trying to get along the terrace from one of the empty apartments. Thieves, I suppose. I’m going to scare them away.”

She sat up. “Have you a revolver?”

“Yes, but I hope I won’t have to use it. They’re making a lot of noise. They probably think there’s no one here.”

My suitcase was under the bed. I got the revolver out, rotated the cylinder until one of the three rounds in it would fire when I pressed the trigger, and went over to the window.

There was a wall separating this section of the terrace from that belonging to the unfinished apartment next door, and it had iron spikes on it. I heard one of the men cursing as he tried to negotiate them. Now was the moment to act, I thought. As I had told Rosalie, all I wanted to do was to scare them away. If either of them got down from the wall, he would be cornered with nowhere to run to.